


No, We Did Not Ask For This, Will You Lead Me?

by Bestboiuwu



Category: Tron (Movies), Tron - All Media Types, Tron: Evolution, Tron: Uprising
Genre: I'll add tags later I'm tired man
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:15:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26830522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bestboiuwu/pseuds/Bestboiuwu
Summary: Flynn keeps his promise to show Sam the grid; but when he takes little six year old Sam in with him, it doesn't stop Clu's Coup.Tron escapes with tiny Sam, and now in addition to having an army to stop, he also has a child to raise. or at least, take care of. Or at least, keep alive.
Relationships: Kevin Flynn/Tron, Sam Flynn & Tron
Comments: 11
Kudos: 50





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> title from the song 'the valley' by the oh hellos

"Flynn, this is the  _ single worst  _ idea you have ever had in all of the cycles I've known you." He's trying to maintain eye contact but the… _ thing,  _ tiny user, was staring up at him from behind Flynn's leg, and it was incredibly distracting. "Do we really have to do this  _ now _ ? Right now? With everything that's happening? The grid is more dangerous than  _ ever,  _ Flynn. This is horrendously stupid. You're putting both him and yourself at risk!"

"It's  _ fine,  _ Tron. I said I would show him the grid, and I fully intend to." He turns his attention to the small one and ruffles his hair. "Hey kiddo, how you doing? You wanna say hi?" He picks the kid up and turns back so that they're both facing Tron. "Sam, meet Tron! Tron, Sam."

The two of them stare at each other for a moment. Sam holds up something in his hand. "Tron?" He asks. Tron looks closer at the toy; it's a tiny plastic model of himself.

Flynn laughs. "Yep, the one and the same!"

"He looks like Uncle Alan." Sam whispers. 

"Yes, he certainly does! C'mon buddy, let's show you around."

* * *

The coup happens, and Clu looks at the child with utter  _ disdain _ .

" _ This  _ is why you've been gone so often?  _ This  _ is why you've been failing to lead?"

"Back off, Clu," Flynn growls, more protective than Tron has ever seen him. "He's my son."

Clu shakes his head. "You'd failed us the second you decide to put this _thing_ above the safety of the grid. You brought this upon yourself, Flynn." He waves a hand and there are soldiers moving towards them on all sides. Flynn frantically turns his head back and forth, taking in the scene, before giving Tron a  _ look, _ that, unfortunately for Tron, he understands perfectly.

_ Get the kid out of here _ .

And Tron has to make a decision, then, and it's the worst descision he's ever had to make in his life, and he would do  _ anything _ to not have to leave Flynn there, but he knows that it's what Flynn wants. He knows it's what he has to do.

He picks up Sam and he runs.


	2. Chapter 2

He gets about halfway through the city before he stops, and Sam is crying the whole way.

There are gaurds up ahead, so Tron ducks into an alleyway to try and wait them out. That won't work if Sam keeps making so much noise, though.

"I need you to be quiet."

"w-what happened to d-dad?" he says, between sobs.

"I don't know." Tron says, and that part hurts, because he doesn't know, and fuck, he kind of wants to start crying himself. "I don't know, but it's not safe right now. I need you to quiet, okay?"

Sam's face scrunches up as he tries to control his crying, but he chokes out an involuntary sob anyways.

"Look, I-" Tron gets an idea. "Do you still have that toy?"

"Y-yeah."

"Okay, here's my job for you. Take that toy and hold onto him really really tight. he'll keep you safe, but we have to be quiet, okay? Look at him." Tron takes the toy from Sam's hand and holds him up. "Look at him, he's quiet, okay? And check it out." He presses the button on the toy so the little 't' lights up. He points to the same 't' on his chest. "I'm Tron, remember? It's my job to keep you safe. And I will. We're gonna be okay."

He hands the toy back to Sam. Sam takes it and clutches it to his chest. He nods, and Tron gets the idea to ruffle his hair (not the sort of action he usually takes, but it was something he had seen Flynn do multiple times.)

They needed to get out of the city. The border would be completely shut down, no question. Clu had soldiers everywhere- (how long has he been planning this? He had this all going right under their noses, and Tron hadn't noticed? How big of an idiot could he possibly be?) And he could probably make it through if he was by himself, but with Sam… They didn't have any chance. Not without help.

"You look like a program in need of a favor." Says a voice, and Tron starts. A program drops from a roof down into the alleyway with them and Tron immediately places himself between Sam and the stranger. (he should have noticed him ages ago. God, this is not Tron's day.) "Guessing we're all gonna be, soon."

The stranger's lightlines are green, and he's wearing a hoodie that exposes his bare chest. Said chest is covered in tattoos.

"You're an ISO."

"And you're Tron. I know what's happened. Something must be wrong if you're not fighting back against Clu's little stunt. Unless you're in on it?"

" _Never_." He says, his voice coming out as a growl.

The stranger's gaze shifts several feet downwards, and his eyes go wide. 

"Is that-"

"Yes." Tron cuts him off. "Yes, it is."

"Oh, man, that's why you didn't fight back, I- Oh Users, man, we gotta get you out of here. C'mon, I know a way out of the city."

He moves to grab Tron's arm, but Tron unsheathes his disk, holding it up defensively. "Woah, okay, no need for disks! I'm trying to help!"

"What reason do we have to trust you?"

"Well, I'm an ISO, for one. I'm sure whatever Clu has planned it probably isn't in my favor." that last bit is said with a biting tone, tinged with a sense of rebellion that seems somewhat familiar. Tron realizes it's probably not to dissimilar to how he used to talk about the MCP, when he was young.

"Plus you're Tron. I can't just let a hero die. Or the son of Flynn, for that matter." And he looks back down at Sam, who is clutching the Tron doll as tightly as he can.

"Fine. Lead the way, program."


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was gonna be longer, but it's been sitting unfinished in my docs for a hot minute now, so I'm chopping it in half and releasing the finished bit.

"Name's Gibson. I should be able to get you as far as Bostrum."

Tron nods. He's still carrying Sam, who has fallen asleep slumped against his chest.

"I've never met a tiny user before. How ya doin' buddy?"

"He's in sleep mode, I think."

Gibson goes pale. "Is he hurt?"

"No, no, that's just a user thing." Tron thinks to the many times he's seen Flynn passed out a desk, or slumped against a couch. "They need to go into sleep mode, sometimes. Even when they're uninjured. It's how they replenish energy."

"That's wild."

Tron looks down at the slumbering Sam.

"A lot of things about Users are 'Wild'."

Tron huffs. Sam was small, sure, but they had been moving for a  _ long  _ time, and the exhaustion was starting to set in.

"I can carry him, if you want." Gibson chimes up. "Just for a bit. You look tired, is all."

Tron gives another huff and readjusts his hold on the boy. He  _ was  _ tired.

"No." He says firmly.

"Look man, I'm not gonna hurt him. I'm just saying, we're not going to get anywhere with you half-exhausted. Plus, you are pretty objectively our best fighter."

"No." He repeats, firmly. "I just lost-" he stops himself. He didn't want to say that out loud yet. "...I have just failed my primary directive for the sake of this boy. I'm not letting him out of my grip until I know it is safe."

Gibson his shoulders one large shrug, and says "Alright, man. I'm not gonna push it, but you really need to learn to start accepting people's help. You're not going to get anywhere like this."

Tron says nothing, and the two of them keep moving forward. Eventually his need to know logistics overrides the unbroken silence and he speaks.

"So how are you planning on getting us out of the city?"

"Oh, well that's the easy part, if you just know where to look. Clu's programs have a blind spot."

"A what?"

"A blind spot. There's a part of the border that they never patrol. It's like a gap in their programming, a part of their rounds they just don't make. Flynn must have made a mistake while programming them." he smiles, " _ or _ , if you subscribe to rumors, some say he left it there on purpose. So he could slip out of the city undetected when he wanted to avoid Clu and go work on his inventions."

Tron considers the two options. Either it had been a complete oversight on Flynn's part, or he had made a deliberate risk to security for the sake of shirking his responsibilities. Both seemed… unideal. But tron knew that programs had a way of mythologizing their creator, making him seem better than he was. Stories about him leaving the gap for the sake sneaking out were probably comforting to many, the idea that everything he had done was fully intentional, that he would never fall below their personal standards.

Tron knew better, of course. He knew that Flynn wasn't immune to mistakes.

"Where is this gap?"

"On the northeast end of the city, next to the informations building."

"I patrol there every other microcycle."

Gibson shrugs. "I don't know, man. Maybe it's 'cause you're from the old system, you have a different set of code. Or maybe Flynn just trusts you."

Tron lets the silence hang in the air.  _ Maybe Flynn just trusts you _ .

Well, that has to be true. He can feel the weight of that trust in his arms, can feel it's breathing.


	4. Chapter 4

"Well, this is where we part ways." Gibson gestures to the green structure ahead of them, welcoming them to Bostrum territory. Sam gives a little gasp, having long since awakened from his nap.

"It's pretty." He says, quietly.

Gibson laughs. "Yes, it is. Prettiest place on the grid, I think."

"You're not coming with us?"

"Nope, headed back to the city. There are plenty of programs inside. Don't worry, they're trustworthy. Nobody hates Clu as much as the general population of Bostrum. Give them my name. Heh, is if yours won't already be enough." He gives a tiny little salute. "Tron. Tiny User." And with that he's off, sliding back into the darkness of the outlands rocks.

The populous seems to take their arrival rather well, all things considered. They are, after the situation is explained, given a room and plenty of energy while they recover. Tron is of course assured that the area is entirely secure, but he does a full sweep and makes sure that he knows the exact locations of all exits and gaurds well before he even so much as sits down. 

When he does, some of the practicalities of the current situation start to set in. There are so many things he doesn't know about users, much less a user child. He knows eventually this will be the same size and presumably level of development as Flynn, but how that process occurs, much less if his actions are needed to in anyway help or hinder it, are completely unknown.

Food might be a problem. Tron knows that Users are supposed to eat food, and that in their world it's like energy but organic. The grid doesn't really have it, but occasionally Flynn used to whip up something via magic user powers that resembled the real stuff, but in all practically functioned as solid energy. Whether or not Sam will be able to survive on energy alone, he does not know, but when Sam complains about being "hungry" a cup full of energy seems to do the trick.

Tron lets out a sigh. None of his questions have answers. Not immediate ones, anyway. He will just have to wait and see how things go.

So here they are, alone in a room, getting the closest thing to rest that, Tron at least, has had since everything happened.

Sam opens his mouth, but catches himself, instead staring to talk in a whisper.

"You can be loud here," Tron interrupts.

"Oh. Is it safe?"

"Mmm, yes, for now." He was hesitant to make any promises. "I was unable to identify any threats."

"Threats?"

"Yes. Bad people."

"Oh. The man that looks like dad… but isn't. Is he a threat?"

"Yes. He's the biggest threat of them all."

"Oh. I don't like him. He's… scary."

"...yes. I suppose he is that."

"Will my dad be okay?"

"I- I don't know."

"I want him to be okay."

"Me too."


End file.
